‘Thousand a year’ would make use of suicide law

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Margo MacDonald: her estimate of the numbers of Scots who would seek to die were her Bill enacted has been challengedFraser Bremner

Lorraine Davidson

Published at 12:01AM, October 6 2010

Legalising assisted suicide could lead to around 1,000 people a year in Scotland exercising their right to die, an MSP claimed yesterday.

Challenging Margo MacDonald — whose Bill, if enacted, would make Scotland the first part of the UK where assisted suicide was legal — Michael Matheson, the Nationalist MSP for Falkirk West, said that a much smaller figure being used by Ms MacDonald was a miscalculation.

The independent MSP for the Lothians had suggested that about 55 people a year would make use of her proposed legislation — based on the experience of the US state of Oregon. Mr Matheson challenged her